Both of us are military

littlesergeant · November 2010

I'm in the Army and FI just finished his time in the active duty Navy. I feel like friends and family do not understand how hard it is for us to have the huge wedding (catholic) THEY want to have. My schedule and paycheck don't really make that possible...plus FI is disabled (somewhat) so we have a lot going on. I wanted something small and my mother went off and invited a ton of her estranged family members while I was away...I was uspet that she never asked what either of us thought. Now I'm about to be flooded with a million people and I'm sort of stuck with some of that bill....I wish we had just gone to the court like my platoon sergeant had suggested! UGH!

Beachy730 · November 2010

Do you already have a date and venue booked and planned? If your mother just mentioned to people that they are invited, but nothing is set in stone, then you aren't obligated to invite them. Plan the wedding that you want and can afford, and if necessary your mom can call those people and explain that the plans changed.

If you want a small wedding at the courthouse and going out to dinner after, then have that. If you want a slightly bigger wedding in Catholic church to appease some other people, then you can do that and still keep it low key and low cost. If you and your FI are paying, you get full control over the guest list, the budget, and everything else.

littlesergeant · November 2010

we already had the date (which is coming us soooo soon) and she sent actual invitations to these people, but then didn't send any to FI's aunts and uncles....so I'm stuck with them

I feel like this wedding is for everyone except for me and my future hubby

Beachy730 · November 2010

Wow, that was a really crappy move on your mom's part. Is she paying for these people? Or any part of the wedding?

I understand that feeling, and I think anyone who gives some control of their day to their parents feels the same way at some point. H and I are both Catholic, but we definitely don't go to church every week and barely have gone the past few years between the LDR and moving and his deployment (which are bad excuses, I know). Getting married in the Catholic church wasn't a huge priority for us, we would have been fine doing a combined ceremony/reception location. But it was really important to my mom and my grandparents, so we did it. And I can honestly say I'm very happy that we did.

But your situation is definitely different. Are you able to pay for all of these extra people? I can't believe that your mom would actually send invites to people without your approval, but I have heard crazier things. Have they all responded that they are coming?

littlesergeant · November 2010

Oh they are definitely coming, they responded and everything (I found out because I found cards with RSVP's on them from these random people sitting on my mom's desk)...which is weird because some of these people have only met me once in my life. ONCE! I don't even remember who they are or how they are related to me by some distant cousin....anyway, we now have at least 20 extra people showing up now! I have to pay for some of it, my parents said they would pay some of it too, but they haven't told me what percentage yet and it's crunch time...if i had been home more I would have put my foot down, but my mind was elsewhere since I'm in the Army and i have to focus on what I'm doing all the time. My FI is hurt because he only wanted a couple of his aunts and uncles to be invited and now we find out they were never invited...embarrassing. I had made the invitations before I left the last time, which was months and months ago. I wrote out all the addresses and everything...I had a guest list that we all agreed on before hand. All my mom had to do was get the stamps and mail the invites for me at the appropriate time for me. Somehow certain invites didn't go out and "extra" invites somehow found their way to people I hadn't invited. I have no idea where she came up with extra invites, unless she just took the ones I made out of the envelopes and re-addressed them. UGH

kara811 · November 2010

Oh dear, this is just a big mess your mother has created for you! I can't believe she did that! Did she even explain to you why she did all this behind your back? It's horrible! It seems that your FI really wants his aunts and uncles there, is it too late to still send them an invite? I would, I don't want them feeling hurt and if I really want them there like your FI does, send them an invite still. Have you told your venue the final head count of your guests yet? You need to tell your mother that she needs to pay for all those extra people she invited. I wouldn't pay for people that I barely know to come to my wedding. I'm sorry for the situation you're in right now, it really sucks. Is there really no way around this? If you don't want the big Catholic wedding, what about cancelling and just eloping? But you really need to have a serious conversation with your mother and put a foot down with her. I hope it your situation somewhat gets better.

kyrgyzstan · November 2010

I am really sorry your mother sucks.

I hope this is a one time thing and not a constant.

littlesergeant · November 2010

yeah unfortunatly its kind of late to cancel stuff now...my FI called his aunts and uncles but they didn't know they were invited so they hadn't planned...the wedding is in about 2 weeks

I had been telling my mom for a long time not book stuff because I really wanted just a sit down dinner with some close friends and family. My FI's mom, sister, and 1 uncle are the only ones coming to the wedding for him.

iluvmytxrgr · November 2010

I'm sorry, if your mom invited a ton of people that you did not invite, she is responsible to foot the bill for them.

brennamartin · November 2010

I know how you feel. I am an Air Force pilot and he's intel. We had to get married on paper to be stationed together, a few months earlier than we would have liked. We have decided NOT to tell our family we are married already; it would break their hearts. He has a deployment coming up, and we have to have our wedding on a three-day weekend to arrange the leave (and plan it in six months). Also, I can only take leave for two weeks at a time to keep current on my flight hours.

Kind of puts a wrench in the honeymoon.

Additionally, planning a wedding ceremony from 2,000 miles away is so difficult.

You're not the only one out there, take heart! I know it feels really lonely and nobody seems to understand how hard it is to worry about a wedding... AND deployments AND base exercises AND you can't just "leave it at work" when you come home. I'm in the middle of a PCS, too, and buying a house so I'll have some place to live at the new base.

Just ask for a lot of help with planning. Delegate all the nagging tasks to family if they want you to have this big wedding. There's only so much you can do! You're only one person.

koryamanda2011 · November 2010

Well I know what some of you are going through. Both me and my FI are both in the air force stationed overseas in england and we are going to have the wedding in Wisconsin were my family lives. His family is from Florida. So at least I have someone at home to help out. But it is super hard to plan a wedding from the internet and over the phone. But it is going good so far. It will get interesting when it gets closer, but for now it is going good. The more interesting part it that I will be deploying very soon after the wedding and my FI is going to volunteer to go so that we will both be there together. So it looks like we will be having our honeymoon inthe sand box!! But at least we will be together!! I hope your problems with your mom works out.

ironmanswiifey · December 2010

I'm really sorry girl! I know exactly how your feeling though. Both my fiance and I are army and deployed to top it all off! It's so hard trying to plan a wedding from Afghanistan and now my parents are talking about adding more people to the guest list because they are afraid the space we have is too big and it will look empty but my fiance and I had to cut out people on our list that we wanted because it would be too much like WTF OVER?!? I would tell your mom that if she wants those random people at YOUR wedding she's going to have to pay for them and that you refuse. That's what I ended up telling my parents. I refuse to pay for random people I have never met or only met once just because they want to invite them. This is YOUR wedding not theirs and they need to respect that and if not then you need to step up and tell those randoms that you really cant have them at the wedding and why - it will hurt feelings but again it's YOUR day and it's not fair that others are interfering. I've had to do this a lot with my mom. She's very old school and she wanted the pure white dress with a veil and all this type of stuff and I ended up buying a dress that is "Diamond White" and I do NOT want to wear a veil and I had to tell her...it's my wedding and she has to respect that. I hope you are able to get rid of those extras I know how hard it is in the military and trying to budget a wedding with extra costs like that is a NO GO.

Both of us are military

Re: Both of us are military

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